


Hope

by messyshower3



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam keeps making moves and Ronan's just ????, M/M, Ronan's POV, Wake UP MAN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4373420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messyshower3/pseuds/messyshower3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Part of him was a bit angry at Adam for the tricks he had been playing lately.  Strange things.  Like smiling."</p><p> Basically: Adam likes Ronan back but obviously that's impossible, right Ronan?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope

     To Ronan Lynch, hope seemed like very dangerous thing to have.  It was one of those things that was nearly impossible to hold on to when someone tried to take it away, and he'd discovered through experience that the Universe was perversely obsessed with taking things away.

     So part of him was a bit angry at Adam for the tricks he had been playing lately.  Strange things.  Like smiling.  Adam smiled a lot at him, these days — often, when he'd caught Ronan staring, and always when Ronan caught Adam staring first.  He had also been sitting quite closely to him at Nino's, and was somehow never too busy to join him in a visit to the Barnes, though that had never been the case before.  Before  _what_ , exactly, Ronan wasn't sure of.

     A second part of him was more angry at himself, for noticing these things at all.  A third, meagre portion was maybe excited about what they could mean.  Which was to say he was mostly angry, especially at the third portion.

 

* * *

 

     He tossed and turned for about twenty minutes, give or take two to three hours, before finally throwing in the towel and on a pair of sweats.  The noise woke Chainsaw, and he shushed her and ruffled the feathers by her beak.  He did this without really paying attention, so he wasn't sure if she'd fallen asleep, but she wasn't making noise anymore and that was certainly enough for Ronan.  Careful not to disturb her again, he cracked open his bedroom door.

    "Gansey?" he said, but the large space seemed to swallow the sound.  The lamp by Gansey's bed was still on, which meant he was probably still awake, but Ronan was met with no response.

    "Gansey?" he tried again, stepping fully out of his room.  The floor glowed with light from the space under the kitchen/bathroom/laundry door.  Ronan thought he might wait and they could play a game of pool, so he pulled up a cue and started to chalk it.  As he got closer to the table, however, he found he could hear a sort of low buzzing.  He stilled the chalk and cocked his head to listen.

     It was coming from the kitchen/bathroom/laundry.

     Too quietly to ever elicit a response, he started again, "Gans — "

     A laugh.  The buzzing was Gansey's voice, whispering.  Ronan walked all the way up to the door, leaned forward almost enough to touch his forehead to it, and listened.

     Something, something.  A chuckle.   _"Do you think so?"_ Silence.   _"Blue..."_

     Ronan shot away, such a  _look_ on his face that he was viciously glad Noah was not corporeal to see it.  He thought about hitting the door and disrupting their little late-night scandal, but then he thought of Gansey and thought of Blue, and figured it was just as well.  No one would try harder to keep them apart than Gansey himself, and it appeared that he had already failed. So. So much for pool.

     Ronan went back to his room to get his keys and double-check on Chainsaw, before noiselessly shutting the door behind him.  The front door was not so noiseless, but Ronan minded less about that because he would already be gone, consequences shut into the building at his back.

     He turned his headlights off as he pulled onto the gravelly St. Agnes lot, but he could already see that Adam had his lights on.  He would go up, he thought, and he would knock very quietly — if Adam had fallen asleep with the lights on, he would leave.  He would not knock louder; he would not wake him up.

     Each wooden step up to the apartment creaked painfully beneath his feet.  Ronan almost thought he wouldn't need to knock at all, but at last, he reached the door, and gently raised a knuckle to it.

      _Tap tap. Tah._   

     Seconds passed.  Maybe it hadn't gone through the door?  It was certainly much quieter than he usually knocked.  Sure, it was creeping on two A.M., but how thick was the door?  He raised two knuckles this time.

      _No,_ Ronan thought.   _No, he's asleep.  Go home._

     The door swung open.

     "Did you knock?" asked Adam, looking like he had just sprung out of bed.  He scratched his ankle, and Ronan watched him do it.  "I barely heard you."

     "Were you alseep?"

     "No, I was awake."  Adam stepped to the side to let him in.  Ronan wasn't sure what to do about it, so he just stood there, feeling disoriented.

     "Well?" Adam prodded, and his tone sounded a little more familiar, though the words still did not.  "Are you coming in?"

     Strange.  Things.

     "You're not busy?" Ronan asked, but stepped in anyway.  He regretted, somewhat, not bringing Chainsaw, so he'd have something to look at that did not immediately scream to him,  _AdamAdamAdam_.  Instead, he picked at the bracelets on his wrist, first with his fingers, then his teeth.

     Adam huffed, "of course I'm busy, idiot, or I would be _sleeping_."

     Ronan looked at the textbooks on the bed, some of which he wasn't even sure he had copies of.  That didn't really bother him; he figured Gansey would have picked them up for him if they were important.

     "Well," he said, trying to normalise the situation, if only slightly, "I'm coming in anyway."

     "That's what I figured," Adam said, in a very Strange way. Ronan tried to catch his expression, but he was already looking away and heading back towards the bed.  He slipped a hand under an open textbook and gracefully tugged it onto his lap.  Ronan looked at Adam and Adam looked at his textbook.

     Adam said, "you can sit, if you'd like," and he smiled.  Ronan concentrated on neither smiling back nor narrowing his eyes in suspicion.  "I'm almost done."

     "You don't need to tell me what to do, Parrish," Ronan said, but it was hollow, and he sat anyway.

 

* * *

 

      At two thirty-three, Adam shut all his textbooks and got ready for bed.  He left the bathroom door open while he changed, and Ronan really, really wished he had brought Chainsaw.  He lay on his stomach facing the wall and fished around for something to focus on.  He pulled apart Adam's blue clicking pen and tried to put it back together the same way.  He broke it.  It wouldn't click back in.

     "Ready?" Adam asked, when he normally would have just thrown Ronan his pillow.  He curled himself onto one side of his mattress and raised his eyebrows at Ronan.

     Ronan put the pen down and grabbed a pillow, frowning, then set it below his head on the hardwood floor.

     "Why don't you ever sleep up here?  There's room for it, I think."

     Ronan mumbled, "the floor is fine," into his pillow.  It smelled like Adam did.

     "No, really.  I'm sure you'll be more comfortable."

     Ronan snapped his head up and looked at Adam very carefully.  Adam smiled.  Ronan drew up his shoulders, and dropped his face back to the pillow.

     He repeated, "the floor it fine."

     Adam sighed, and turned off the light.

     It was actually not very comfortable to sleep this way, flat on his stomach with his neck kinked to the side.  He could hear his breath bounce loudly off the fabric of the pillow, his knees kept knocking against the ground, and he could never shift at all without crunching himself in the testicles.  But this position put him the farthest possible away from Adam, which kept him from being tempted to look until after Adam fell asleep.  When he felt enough time had passed, he turned over, and faced Adam where he had his back turned.  He saw the finer hairs at the nape of Adam's neck curl and twist in all different directions, and judging from how one section of hair was being pushed up by the pillow, he would have a major cowlick tomorrow morning.  Ronan couldn't wait.

     He watched Adam's shoulder rise and fall with each deep breath — followed the sheets where they stretched and dipped by his waist, over his ass and then down his leg.  He could see Adam's shoulder blades through the back of his white T, and briefly wondered what it would smell like if he tucked his nose in the space between them.  Would it smell like the pillow?  Less like shampoo, probably, more like fabric softener.  A hand dared reach out to run a finger down his spine, but of course it did not.  Ronan stopped it halfway, and let it fall like meat on the floor between him and Adam's mattress.  His knuckles knocked against the wood, and Adam started to shift and turn.  Ronan closed his eyes, feigning even breath. The rest of him stayed where it was.

      _Breathe.  Breathe.  Keep your eyes closed.  Breathe._

     Something tickled his fingers.  They curled a bit against his will, but he stilled them after that.  The tickle extended towards his palm, until it became clear that it was Adam's hand.

      _Adam's hand._

_Keep your eyes closed.  Breathe._

     Adam stretch down all the way so that he hooked their thumbs.  Ronan subtly let his fingers relax so that they could curl around Adam's.  He didn't dare squeeze.

      _Breathe.  Keep your eyes closed.  Breathe._

     Only, his breathing was not as deep nor as even as it had been, he could feel it.  He only hoped that Adam wasn't paying as much attention.

     Adam ran his thumb against the back of Ronan's hand.  He ran it up the knuckle of Ronan's thumb, and Ronan went completely still.  He didn't pretend to breathe evenly, because he wasn't breathing at all.

     He felt his hand be gently lifted from the floor, and then the ghost of a kiss over his knuckles.  Ronan jerked his hand back at the very instant of contact, his eyes finally flying open.

     "What are you doing?" he asked, a little more sharply than he had intended.  Or maybe not.

     Adam didn't answer right away, but he didn't stutter when he did, either.

     "Ronan," he began seriously, and Ronan felt odd to hear it.  It did not feel good but neither was it unpleasant.  He wondered if he should be angry about it, but he wasn't sure, so the ember eventually fizzled out, leaving only the nameless feeling behind.  "Who do you like?"

     Ronan blinked several times, but it was impossible to read Adam's expression in the dark.  Only the slightest light spilled in from the street, illuminating the whites of Adam's eyes.  

     To be sure, Ronan asked, "what?" though he was almost certain he had heard.

     "Do you like someone?  I don't think you ever told me."

     "You never asked," Ronan shot back, which he knew was a futile thing to say as soon as he said it.

     "I'm asking now."  Obviously.

     "The only girls who will spend time with me are Blue and my mom.  No thanks."

     Adam smiled.  Again, Ronan felt Strange.  

     "You didn't answer the question," Adam pointed out, speaking very quietly.  Then he repeated, "is there someone you like?"

     Ronan set his jaw and narrowed his eyes.  The ember was back, not in anger, but in stubbornness.  It had become clear that Adam was playing a game, and Ronan didn't know the rules yet, which was not something he liked.

     He stayed quiet for a long time out of habit, used to silence and intimidation smothering unwanted questions out of existence.  But this was Adam, which meant his silence and intimidation were effectively useless.  In the end, he bit out, "yes."

     "Who is it?"

     "Why do you care?"

     Adam balled the corner of his sheets up in a fist.  Ronan still couldn't read Adam's expression in the dark, so it was difficult to tell if he was embarrassed or scared or what, but when Adam spoke again it was clear that he was angry.

     "Because," Adam started, evidently fighting to keep his voice at an appropriate volume for the time of night.  "Because?  Because you're making me crazy."  The last part must have come out louder than Adam had expected, because his eyes shot wide and the fist full of sheet sprung up to cover his mouth.

     "What?" Ronan said again, and he was angry at that, too.  At how stupid and senseless he sounded, at how he couldn't catch on even though he felt he'd had plenty of time to.  Apparently, this was also what Adam was angry about.

     " _You're making me crazy!_ " Adam repeated, this time in a whisper-shout, all attempts at a calm composure thrown to the wind.  " _I don't know what you're thinking!_ I thought, maybe I was wrong, why isn't he doing anything?  But I'm not wrong, am I?   _Why aren't you doing anything._ " 

     Adam's breaths were deep and audible in the small room, and the space felt suddenly too warm to Ronan, especially in his ears and especially in his neck and especially by his shoulders.

     Again, he said, "what?" and the sound Adam made in his throat reminded Ronan of the alligators he'd seen on Discovery Channel.  He thought it might be time to quit the games and just  _ask_ for the rules.  "I don't know what's going on," he admitted, and tried to sound as sincere as he knew how.

     There was a lot of time, then, where neither of them said anything.  They stared at each other right in the eyes, the only really visible part of either of them, until Adam finally said, "I like you."

     Ronan said absolutely nothing.  His breath didn't hitch, his brow didn't furrow.  In his head was only the phrase  _I like you I like you I like you,_  which was not an unnatural thing, when he was looking at Adam.  By the time his brain finally registered that it was not, in fact,  _his_ phrase, but Adam's, Adam had taken his silence as cue to continue.

     "I like you," he repeated, and every organ in Ronan's body reverberated with it.  "And I thought you liked me, too.  But every time I try to get you to do something, you never do.  You pull away, or you walk away, or you start a fight.  What's with that?"

     "When were you — "

     "When we're walking and I knock hands with you, I'm not trying to _"_ _run you off the path, Parrish."_  I'm trying to hold your hand.  When we bump shoulders at Nino's I really wish you would put your arm around me.  Every time — every time I follow you to the Barnes, I hope to God you'll try and kiss me." _  
_

     Ronan felt himself suck in air, but thank merciful God that it was silent.  If he had gasped just then, he would have thrown himself out the window down to the pavement.  He pushed his hand out again towards Adam, who took it without a word.

     "You like me?" Ronan asked, hating himself a little for how he sounded just then.  Adam nodded, and squeezed his hand reassuringly.  Ronan watched Adam stroke his knuckles with his thumb again, then eventually reciprocated.  He met Adam's eyes once more — Adam, who was already looking, and who smiled at him again.  Ronan quite deliberately dropped his gaze to Adam's lips, which he'd rarely allowed himself to do before.  He made up for it all now.

     "I can kiss you?"

     Adam shifted closer to Ronan on his pillow.  "Please," he said, lifting Ronan's hand to his mouth like he had before Ronan pulled away.  "Please do."

 


End file.
